Thirty Pictures of Arthur Pendragon
by UselessWreckage
Summary: Taken without him noticing. Modern AU. Intended to read as Merthur, but pairings are, I suppose, up to interpretation.


At a quarter past two in the afternoon, the old man finally plucks up the courage to walk up the stairs. He opens the door to the bedroom and stands for a long moment. When he enters, he doesn't know where to start. He touches the walls with slight reverence, caresses the edge of the bedside table, lets his fingers trail along the edge of a lampshade, coming away with a line of dust deposited across them. He smiles to himself, but the smile disappears almost immediately, extinguished before it can take hold. He opens a window. He opens cupboards. He opens a closet. On the shelf, something catches his attention. It is a cardboard box with the letter A scrawled on it in permanent marker. The old man reaches up and takes the box, which is not heavy, places it on the bed and opens it. Inside, he finds exactly what he expects to find: a collection of photographs. They are arranged in chronological order, and they all have the same subject. In none of them was he aware that he was being photographed.

The first was one of many pictures taken, most of which were discarded. The one of Arthur Pendragon would have been, too, if it hadn't been for the confrontation that happened less than a minute later. He looks carefree in the picture, captured in a moment of mischievous intent, with a grin on his face and his blonde hair shining in the backlight like a halo.

The second picture is taken during a football match, a commission for the university newspaper. It shows Arthur in action, sliding in to tackle an opposing player. You wouldn't be able to tell for certain from the picture, but they won that game, and Arthur was very much the star of the match.

The third is a picture taken at an event in the Students' Union. Arthur is dancing, his arms placed firmly on the hips of a pretty girl with long, honey coloured hair and somewhat mesmerising eyes. He has eyes for nothing but her, and looks completely besotted.

In the fourth picture, Arthur looks desolate. It is taken in profile at the hospital, during his recovery after the incident with the girl from the party. He looks lost and so, so young, staring into space wondering where it all went wrong. The fact that someone else is in the room, let alone that they have a camera, he has completely forgotten.

Picture number five is a photograph of a newspaper article, which recounts a debate which the mighty Arthur Pendragon managed to lose, much to the amusement of his many enemies. The main picture of the article is of the winning team's celebration, but the small inset of Arthur's face is far from flattering.

In the sixth picture, Arthur is peering around a brick wall with his back to the camera, and his hand in that of a sweet, dark haired girl who is obviously giggling.

The seventh picture also features the dark haired girl, this time sitting next to Arthur on a sofa as they watch a film. They are surrounded by other friends, but the focus is on the two of them, laughing together at some joke from the screen.

In the eighth, the girl is with another guy, who is just as handsome as Arthur, but with deep brown eyes and golden skin. He looks at her as if she were the be-all and end-all of worthwhile existence. Arthur is in the foreground, looking at his phone with dismay. He is, yet again, completely unaware of his surroundings.

The focus of the ninth picture is not Arthur, but a girl with a warm smile and brown hair, who holds up a drink to toast the camera. If Arthur had known that he would be visible in the background of the shot, he might not have stared at her with such obvious enmity.

The tenth picture is taken at the top of a hill, with a magnificent view. Arthur is standing with his back towards the camera. You can see for miles and miles, but there is no other living soul to be spotted.

The eleventh picture is taken at an odd angle, almost completely upside down. It is slightly out of focus, and shows Arthur, clad in jeans, t-shirt, and some shockingly perforated socks, leaving a very messy bedroom.

In the twelfth picture, Arthur is laying back and stretching, a smile on his face that betrays the fact that he is very aware that he has almost pushed the photographer out of the boat they are both on. He is resting his feet on the railing, clad in swim trunks only, basking in the sun which reflects off the droplets on his skin, showing up on the picture as little orbs of light.

The thirteenth picture is taken via a mirror, and shows Arthur turning his head from where he is seated on a different sofa on a different movie night, calling to one of the same friends, who is in the kitchen, to request more popcorn.

The fourteenth picture is another one from the football field. In this one, he is hugging the man with the golden skin. They are wearing matching kits and celebrating a goal that they both contributed heartily to.

The fifteenth is taken stealthily while Arthur is inspecting a small plastic dragon, white in colour, which he has picked up from the kitchen table. He smiles fondly at the dragon. Still on the table is a note saying 'Happy Birthday!' with a silly, grinning face drawn next to it.

Arthur looks distraught in the sixteenth picture. He is on the phone with his sister, and his face looks closed up and tense. Seconds after the picture was taken, he started yelling down the line.

In the seventeenth, he is asleep. He rests against soft, white sheets and is completely at ease, with his eyes closed and his mouth forming a tiny little smile, blissfully oblivious to the fact that the alarm clock behind him shows that it's already one in the afternoon.

The eighteenth picture is incredibly blurry. Arthur is no more than a blond-haired smudge busy falling over together with another blond-haired smudge; the girl who clumsily barrelled into him while he was posing for the photo.

In the nineteenth picture, he is with the dark haired girl again, and it is their wedding day. He looks like the very essence of happiness, as does she. They are dancing, he is twirling her around. Her hair is flowing out in all directions, and some of the little, glittering flowers, that were placed in the curls so carefully, are caught by the camera in mid-air, spinning off to destinations unknown.

The twentieth was taken the same night. This one shows Arthur alone, unsmiling, looking at something clutched in his right hand. From the picture, you can't tell what it is, only that it is something white.

In the twenty-first, he is blocking the door to the room with his arm, denying his sister entrance. She is staring over his shoulder and directly into the camera, her porcelain face twisted into a look of absolute fury.

In the twenty-second, his head is thrown back and he is pouring a pint of beer down his throat with enthusiasm, only barely losing the race to the good-humoured, bearded man standing opposite him.

The twenty-third picture is a close up of Arthur in a church, dressed in black, tears that he would never admit to shedding streaming down his face. From here on, the pictures seem to have been taken less frequently, the changes between each one much greater.

The twenty-fourth picture shows Arthur asleep with his head on his wife's shoulder. She is aware of the photographer, winking conspiratorially at the camera and indicating the drowsing man by her side. Their faces are both visibly older and more lined than they were in their wedding photograph.

Arthur's face is closed off again in the twenty-fifth photograph, as it tends to be when he is arguing with someone. This time the person is in the frame; it is his comrade from the football team. The man is yelling at Arthur in frustration, but receives no helpful response.

In the twenty-sixth, he is sitting on his plush living room sofa, hunched over and covering his face with his hands. His exhaustion is obvious.

The twenty-seventh picture is taken during a five hour drive, and Arthur is staring intently at the road before him. There is a green landscape blurring alongside the window of the frankly quite impressive car, and some white dots that may or may not be sheep.

The twenty-eighth is taken at a café in London, and Arthur has thrown his head back in laughter, his eyes squeezing shut, making the numerous lines of his face all the more visible.

Picture number twenty-nine was taken from a distance. It shows Arthur in a park on a warm summer's day, earlier this very year, in fact. He is bending forwards, something his back tends to do for him nowadays anyhow, and looking at a small frog that is being held up to him by a little girl in red overalls and bright yellow wellington boots. They are the picture of happiness, and the blue eyes in the tiny child's face are exactly the same as the ones looking back at her from the old man's.

The thirtieth and last photograph is set in a hospital room. It is taken from the bed, and shows Arthur where he has fallen asleep on a chair, worrying. This can't be more than a week ago, proving that someone else than the photographer must have had access to this box and placed it there.

The old man places all the pictures back in the box and closes it, before resting his head against it. He does not cry. He wraps his arms around the cardboard and hugs it to his chest. It is not the repeated confrontation with his own face that makes these pictures so strong. Rather than just a memory of his own life, they carry the memory of a man of whom it is bizarrely impossible to obtain a single shot, all renditions of his face long since deleted, burned or forgotten. He took pictures, he didn't pose for them. And now, all that Arthur has left of him is this box, with which he can see himself through a dead man's eyes.


End file.
